Hakan Sefa Çakır, President of Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, stated that digitalization is a matter of survival for all sectors.
Hakan Sefa Çakır, President of Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MTSO), stated that digitalization is now a matter of survival for all sectors and said, “We will either be a spectator or a quarterback in the business. All this depends on catching the digitalization train.”
Çakır participated in the ‘Mersin E-Export Summit’ organized under the coordination of the Ministry of Trade, the organization of the Mediterranean Exporters’ Associations (AKİB), in cooperation with MTSO, Mersin, Tarsus, Çağ and Toros universities. At the two-day summit, e-export officials from the Ministry of Trade and TIM, leading industry representatives, Turkey’s e-export policies, government support, customs clearance procedures in e-export, e-export opportunities and best practices in this field, digital marketing and sales strategies made presentations about.
“We are rapidly moving towards an unpredictable future”
Speaking at the opening of the summit, MTSO President Hakan Sefa Çakır reminded that Mersin has been an export city for 175 years and touched upon the city’s foreign trade figures. Çakır said that in 2023, Mersin was the 7th largest export city in Turkey with exports of 9.4 billion dollars. Noting that the city’s total foreign trade volume exceeded $20 billion on the basis of Mersin companies alone, Çakır said, “We are talking about a foreign trade region exceeding $70 billion with the Çukurova Region at its center, the Eastern Mediterranean Economic Region and the provinces in its outer hinterland. Today, although these figures do not look so bad among global economic contractions, difficulties, wars and protectionism of countries, we are about to hit an invisible wall at the point of extraordinary transformations of our age and on the basis of the future.”
Pointing out that the world is rapidly moving towards an unpredictable future with information and communication technologies, internet and artificial intelligence at its center, Çakır said, “The issue is no longer which sectors we are strong in. Our main issue now should be how to integrate these sectors into high technology and the digital world, regardless of which sector they are.” Çakır pointed out that if digital transformation is not achieved, even the strongest sectors will slip away one by one,
“Therefore, we have to make foreign trade, which is one of the backbone sectors of our city, and every field from logistics, port operations, customs brokerage, warehousing, packaging and marketing that serves this, compatible with the digital world in a holistic sense with competent human resources.”
“We cannot reach the future with the paradigms of the past”
Emphasizing that this is not a fashion but a necessity, a matter of survival, Çakır continued his speech as follows: “In this future projection, today’s classical foreign trade logic will eventually disappear. We cannot reach the future with the paradigms of the past. We can prepare for the future with the knowledge of the future. This important summit, especially the program content of the summit, is designed to prepare our companies for this very future, to enable them to take a concrete step beyond raising awareness. We will either be spectators or playmakers in the business. All this depends on catching the digitalization train. Our country lost several centuries in industrial revolutions. This time, there is an opportunity to make up for the lack of centuries in a short time. Let’s not miss this time. As the state, as companies or NGOs, we have to allocate our resources to the establishment of the ecosystem of this business.”
The trend model of the future is social media sales method”
The summit continued with the presentation of Hasan Önal, Head of the Department of E-Export, Digital Marketing, Behavioral Public Policies and New Generation Technologies of the General Directorate of Export of the Ministry of Trade. In his presentation on ‘E-export policies, future trends and e-export’, Önal gave various advice to those who want to move their exports to the digital platform. Önal, who advised companies to brand and sell their products through their own web pages instead of e-export through the marketplace, said, “In this way, you will keep customer information on your own page. The second channel to support this is the social media sales method. This seems to be the marketplace of the future and the trend sales model.” Pointing out that technology and its accompanying systems are changing rapidly, Önal said that work is continuing on web3 and web4, and with the implementation of web4, the smell and taste of the product can be heard before buying it. Noting that Web5 will be the internet of thoughts, Önal said that this system will enable communication between people without the need for any device and without speaking.
